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PAUL McCARTNEY
Sir James Paul McCartney CH MBE (born 18 June 1942) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, composer, and record and film producer who gained worldwide fame as co-lead vocalist and bassist for the Beatles. His songwriting partnership with John Lennon remains the most successful in history. After the group disbanded in 1970, he pursued a solo career and formed the band Wings with his first wife, Linda, and Denny Laine. A self-taught musician, McCartney is proficient on bass, guitar, keyboards, and drums. He is known for his melodic approach to bass-playing (mainly playing with a plectrum), his versatile and wide tenor vocal range (spanning over four octaves), and his eclecticism (exploring styles ranging from pre-rock and roll pop to classical and electronica). McCartney began his career as a member of the Quarrymen in 1957, which evolved into the Beatles in 1960. Starting with the 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, he gradually became the Beatles' de facto leader, providing the creative impetus for most of their music and film projects. His Beatles songs "And I Love Her" (1964), "Yesterday" (1965), "Eleanor Rigby" (1966) and "Blackbird" (1968) rank among the most covered songs in history. In 1970, McCartney debuted as a solo artist with the album McCartney. Throughout the 1970s, he led Wings, one of the most successful bands of the decade, with more than a dozen international top 10 singles and albums. McCartney resumed his solo career in 1980. Since 1989, he has toured consistently as a solo artist. In 1993, he formed the music duo the Fireman with Youth of Killing Joke. Beyond music, he has taken part in projects to promote international charities related to such subjects as animal rights, seal hunting, land mines, vegetarianism, poverty, and music education. McCartney is one of the most successful composers and performers of all time. He has written or co-written 32 songs that have reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100, and as of 2009, had 25.5 million RIAA-certified units in the United States. His honors include two inductions into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (as a member of the Beatles in 1988 and as a solo artist in 1999), 18 Grammy Awards, an appointment as a Member of the Order of the British Empire in 1965, and a knighthood in 1997 for services to music. As of 2015, he is also one of the wealthiest musicians in the world, with an estimated fortune of $730 million. Featured Channels *SupportMFM *PaulMcCartneyVEVO Early Life James Paul McCartney was born on 18 June 1942 at Walton Hospital in the Walton area of Liverpool, where his mother, Mary Patricia (née Mohin), had qualified to practise as a nurse. His father, James ("Jim") McCartney, was absent from his son's birth due to his work as a volunteer firefighter during World War II. McCartney has a younger brother named Michael and a stepsister named Ruth. The children were baptised in their mother's Catholic faith, even though their father was a former Protestant who had turned agnostic. Religion was not emphasised in the household. McCartney attended Stockton Wood Road Primary School in Speke from 1947 until 1949, when he transferred to Joseph Williams Junior School in Belle Vale because of overcrowding at Stockton. In 1953, he was one of only three students out of 90 to pass the 11-Plus exam, meaning he could attend the Liverpool Institute, a grammar school rather than a secondary modern school.8 In 1954, he met schoolmate George Harrison on the bus from his suburban home in Speke. The two quickly became friends; McCartney later admitted: "I tended to talk down to him because he was a year younger." : "The type of people that I came from, I never saw better! ... I mean, the Presidents, the Prime Minister, I never met anyone half as nice as some of the people I know from Liverpool who are nothing, who do nothing. They're not important or famous. But they are smart, like my dad was smart. I mean, people who can just cut through problems like a hot knife through butter. The kind of people you need in life. Salt of the earth.10 — Paul McCartney, Playboy interview, 1984." McCartney's mother, Mary, was a midwife and the family's primary wage earner; her earnings enabled them to move into 20 Forthlin Road in Allerton,11 where they lived until 1964. She rode a bicycle to her patients; McCartney described an early memory of her leaving at "about three in the morning the streets ... thick with snow". On 31 October 1956, when McCartney was 14, his mother died of an embolism as a complication of surgery for breast cancer. McCartney's loss later became a point of connection with John Lennon, whose mother, Julia, had died when he was 17. McCartney's father was a trumpet player and pianist who had led Jim Mac's Jazz Band in the 1920s. He kept an upright piano in the front room, encouraged his sons to be musical and advised McCartney to take piano lessons. However, McCartney preferred to learn by ear. When McCartney was 11, his father encouraged him to audition for the Liverpool Cathedral choir, but he was not accepted. McCartney then joined the choir at St Barnabas' Church, Mossley Hill. McCartney received a nickel-plated trumpet from his father for his fourteenth birthday, but when rock and roll became popular on Radio Luxembourg, McCartney traded it for a £15 Framus Zenith (model 17) acoustic guitar, since he wanted to be able to sing while playing.20 He found it difficult to play guitar right-handed, but after noticing a poster advertising a Slim Whitman concert and realising that Whitman played left-handed, he reversed the order of the strings. McCartney wrote his first song, "I Lost My Little Girl", on the Zenith, and composed another early tune that would become "When I'm Sixty-Four" on the piano. American rhythm and blues influenced him, and Little Richard was his schoolboy idol; "Long Tall Sally" was the first song McCartney performed in public, at a Butlin's Filey holiday camp talent competition. Career 1957-1960: Quarryman At the age of fifteen on 6 July 1957, McCartney met John Lennon and his band, the Quarrymen, at the St Peter's Church Hall fête in Woolton.23 The Quarrymen played a mix of rock and roll and skiffle, a type of popular music with jazz, blues and folk influences.24 Soon afterwards, the members of the band invited McCartney to join as a rhythm guitarist, and he formed a close working relationship with Lennon. Harrison joined in 1958 as lead guitarist, followed by Lennon's art school friend Stuart Sutcliffe on bass, in 1960.25 By May 1960 the band had tried several names, including Johnny and the Moondogs, Beatals and the Silver Beetles.26 They adopted the name the Beatles in August 1960 and recruited drummer Pete Best shortly before a five-engagement residency in Hamburg. 1960-1970: The Beatles The Beatles were informally represented by Allan Williams; in 1960, the group booked its first performance at a residency in Hamburg.282 In 1961, Sutcliffe left the band and McCartney reluctantly became their bass player.30 While in Hamburg, they recorded professionally for the first time and were credited as the Beat Brothers, who were the backing band for English singer Tony Sheridan on the single "My Bonnie".31 This resulted in attention from Brian Epstein, who was a key figure in their subsequent development and success. He became their manager in January 1962.32 Ringo Starr replaced Best in August, and the band had their first hit, "Love Me Do", in October, becoming popular in the UK in 1963, and in the US a year later. The fan hysteria became known as "Beatlemania", and the press sometimes referred to McCartney as the "cute Beatle".333 McCartney co-wrote (with Lennon) several of their early hits, including "I Saw Her Standing There", "She Loves You", "I Want to Hold Your Hand" (1963) and "Can't Buy Me Love" (1964).35 In August 1965, the Beatles released the McCartney composition "Yesterday", featuring a string quartet. Included on the Help! LP, the song was the group's first recorded use of classical music elements and their first recording that involved only a single band member.36 "Yesterday" became one of the most covered songs in popular music history.37 Later that year, during recording sessions for the album Rubber Soul, McCartney began to supplant Lennon as the dominant musical force in the band. Musicologist Ian MacDonald wrote, "from 1965 ... McCartney would be in the ascendant not only as a songwriter, but also as instrumentalist, arranger, producer, and de facto musical director of the Beatles."38 Critics described Rubber Soul as a significant advance in the refinement and profundity of the band's music and lyrics.39 Considered a high point in the Beatles catalogue, both Lennon and McCartney said they had written the music for the song "In My Life".40 McCartney said of the album, "we'd had our cute period, and now it was time to expand."41 Recording engineer Norman Smith stated that the Rubber Soul sessions exposed indications of increasing contention within the band: "the clash between John and Paul was becoming obvious ... and as far as Paul was concerned, George Harrison could do no right—Paul was absolutely finicky."42 In 1966, the Beatles released the album Revolver. Featuring sophisticated lyrics, studio experimentation, and an expanded repertoire of musical genres ranging from innovative string arrangements to psychedelic rock, the album marked an artistic leap for the Beatles.43 The first of three consecutive McCartney A-sides, the single "Paperback Writer" preceded the LP's release.44 The Beatles produced a short promotional film for the song, and another for its B-side, "Rain". The films, described by Harrison as "the forerunner of videos", aired on The Ed Sullivan Show and Top of the Pops in June 1966.45 Revolver also included McCartney's "Eleanor Rigby", which featured a string octet. According to Gould, the song is "a neoclassical tour de force ... a true hybrid, conforming to no recognizable style or genre of song".46 Except for some backing vocals, the song included only McCartney's lead vocal and the strings arranged by producer George Martin. The band gave their final commercial concert at the end of their 1966 US tour.49 Later that year, McCartney completed his first musical project independently of the group—a film score for the UK production The Family Way. The score was a collaboration with Martin, who used two McCartney themes to write thirteen variations. The soundtrack failed to chart, but it won McCartney an Ivor Novello Award for Best Instrumental Theme.50 Upon the end of the Beatles' performing career, McCartney sensed unease in the band and wanted them to maintain creative productivity. He pressed them to start a new project, which became Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, widely regarded as rock's first concept album.51 McCartney was inspired to create a new persona for the group, to serve as a vehicle for experimentation and to demonstrate to their fans that they had musically matured. He invented the fictional band of the album's title track.52 As McCartney explained, "We were fed up with being the Beatles. We really hated that fucking four little mop-top approach. We were not boys we were men ... and we thought of ourselves as artists rather than just performers."53 Starting in November 1966, the band adopted an experimental attitude during recording sessions for the album.54 According to engineer Geoff Emerick, "the Beatles were looking to go out on a limb, both musically and sonically ... we were utilising a lot of tape varispeeding and other manipulation techniques ... limiters and ... effects like flanging and ADT."55 Their recording of "A Day in the Life" required a forty-piece orchestra, which Martin and McCartney took turns conducting.56 The sessions produced the double A-side single "Strawberry Fields Forever"/"Penny Lane" in February 1967, and the LP followed in June.345 McCartney's "She's Leaving Home" was an orchestral pop song. MacDonald described the track as "among the finest work on Sgt. Pepper—imperishable popular art of its time".58 Based on an ink drawing by McCartney, the LP's cover included a collage designed by pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth, featuring the Beatles in costume as the Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, standing with a host of celebrities.596 The heavy moustaches worn by the Beatles reflected the growing influence of hippie style trends on the band, while their clothing "spoofed the vogue in Britain for military fashions", wrote Gould.61 Scholar David Scott Kastan described Sgt. Pepper as "the most important and influential rock-and-roll album ever recorded".62 After Brian died ... Paul took over and supposedly led us you know ... we went round in circles ... We broke up then. That was the disintegration. I thought, 'we've fuckin' had it.'63 — John Lennon, Rolling Stone magazine, 1970 Epstein's death at age 32 in August 1967 created a void, which left the Beatles perplexed and concerned about their future.64 McCartney stepped in to fill that void and gradually became the de facto leader and business manager of the group that Lennon had once led.65 In his first creative suggestion after this change of leadership, McCartney proposed that the band move forward on their plans to produce a film for television, which was to become Magical Mystery Tour. According to Beatles' historian Mark Lewisohn, the project was "an administrative nightmare throughout".66 McCartney largely directed the film, which brought the group their first unfavourable critical response.67 However, the film's soundtrack was more successful. It was released in the UK as a six-track double extended play disc (EP), and as an identically titled LP in the US, filled out with five songs from the band's recent singles.34 The only Capitol compilation later included in the group's official canon of studio albums, the Magical Mystery Tour LP achieved $8 million in sales within three weeks of its release, higher initial sales than any other Capitol LP up to that point. The Beatles' animated film Yellow Submarine, loosely based on the imaginary world evoked by McCartney's 1966 composition, premiered in July 1968. Though critics admired the film for its visual style, humour and music, the soundtrack album issued six months later received a less enthusiastic response.69 By late 1968, relations within the band were deteriorating. The tension grew during the recording of their eponymous double album, also known as the "White Album".707 Matters worsened the following year during the Let It Be sessions, when a camera crew filmed McCartney lecturing the group: "We've been very negative since Mr. Epstein passed away ... we were always fighting his discipline a bit, but it's silly to fight that discipline if it's our own".72 In March 1969, McCartney married his first wife, Linda Eastman, and in August, the couple had their first child, Mary, named after his late mother.73 Abbey Road was the band's last recorded album, and Martin suggested "a continuously moving piece of music", urging the group to think symphonically.74 McCartney agreed, but Lennon did not. They eventually compromised, agreeing to McCartney's suggestion: an LP featuring individual songs on side one, and a long medley on side two.74 In October 1969, a rumour surfaced that McCartney had died in a car crash in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike, but this was quickly refuted when a November Life magazine cover featured him and his family, accompanied by the caption "Paul is still with us".75 McCartney was in the midst of business disagreements with his bandmates when he announced his departure from the group on 10 April 1970.76 He filed a suit for the band's formal dissolution on 31 December 1970, and in March 1971 the court appointed a receiver to oversee Apple's finances. An English court legally dissolved the Beatles' partnership on 9 January 1975, though sporadic lawsuits against their record company EMI, Klein, and each other persisted until 1989.6589 McCartney was depressed after the group disbanded. His wife helped him pull out of that condition by praising his work as a songwriter and convincing him to continue writing and recording. In her honour, he wrote "Maybe I'm Amazed", explaining that with the Beatles breaking up, "that was my feeling: Maybe I'm amazed at what's going on ... Maybe I'm a man and maybe you're the only woman who could ever help me; Baby won't you help me understand ... Maybe I'm amazed at the way you pulled me out of time, hung me on the line, Maybe I'm amazed at the way I really need you." He added that "every love song I write is for Linda." 1970-1981: Wings After the Beatles broke up in 1970, McCartney continued his musical career with his first solo release, McCartney, a US number-one album. Apart from some vocal contributions from Linda, McCartney is a one-man album, with McCartney providing compositions, instrumentation and vocals.8410 In 1971, he collaborated with Linda and drummer Denny Seiwell on a second album, Ram. A UK number one and a US top five, Ram included the co-written US number-one hit single "Uncle Albert/Admiral Halsey".86 Later that year, ex-Moody Blues guitarist Denny Laine joined the McCartneys and Seiwell to form the band Wings. McCartney had this to say on the group's formation: "Wings were always a difficult idea ... any group having to follow Beatles' success would have a hard job ... I found myself in that very position. However, it was a choice between going on or finishing, and I loved music too much to think of stopping."8711 In September 1971, the McCartneys' daughter Stella was born, named in honour of Linda's grandmothers, both of whom were named Stella.89 Following the addition of guitarist Henry McCullough, Wings' first concert tour began in 1972 with a debut performance in front of an audience of seven hundred at the University of Nottingham. Ten more gigs followed as they travelled across the UK in a van during an unannounced tour of universities, during which the band stayed in modest accommodation and received pay in coinage collected from students, while avoiding Beatles songs during their performances.90 McCartney later said, "The main thing I didn't want was to come on stage, faced with the whole torment of five rows of press people with little pads, all looking at me and saying, 'Oh well, he is not as good as he was.' So we decided to go out on that university tour which made me less nervous ... by the end of that tour I felt ready for something else, so we went into Europe."91 During the seven-week, 25-show Wings Over Europe Tour, the band played almost solely Wings and McCartney solo material: the Little Richard cover "Long Tall Sally" was the only song that had previously been recorded by the Beatles. McCartney wanted the tour to avoid large venues; most of the small halls they played had capacities of fewer than 3,000 people.92 In March 1973, Wings achieved their first US number-one single, "My Love", included on their second LP, Red Rose Speedway, a US number one and UK top five.9312 McCartney's collaboration with Linda and former Beatles producer Martin resulted in the song "Live and Let Die", which was the theme song for the James Bond film of the same name. Nominated for an Academy Award, the song reached number two in the US and number nine in the UK. It also earned Martin a Grammy for his orchestral arrangement.94 Music professor and author Vincent Benitez described the track as "symphonic rock at its best". After the departure of McCullough and Seiwell in 1973, the McCartneys and Laine recorded Band on the Run. The album was the first of seven platinum Wings LPs.97 It was a US and UK number one, the band's first to top the charts in both countries and the first ever to reach Billboard magazine's charts on three separate occasions. One of the best-selling releases of the decade, it remained on the UK charts for 124 weeks. Rolling Stone named it one of the Best Albums of the Year for 1973, and in 1975, Paul McCartney and Wings won the Grammy Award for Best Pop Vocal Performance for the song "Band on the Run" and Geoff Emerick won the Grammy for Best Engineered Recording for the album.9814 In 1974, Wings achieved a second US number-one single with the title track.100 The album also included the top-ten hits "Jet" and "Helen Wheels", and earned the 413th spot on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.10115 Wings followed Band on the Run with the chart-topping albums Venus and Mars (1975) and Wings at the Speed of Sound (1976).10316 In 1975, they began the fourteen-month Wings Over the World Tour, which included stops in the UK, Australia, Europe and the US. The tour marked the first time McCartney performed Beatles songs live with Wings, with five in the two-hour set list: "I've Just Seen a Face", "Yesterday", "Blackbird", "Lady Madonna" and "The Long and Winding Road".105 Following the second European leg of the tour and extensive rehearsals in London, the group undertook an ambitious US arena tour that yielded the US number-one live triple LP Wings over America.106 In September 1977, the McCartneys had a third child, a son they named James. In November, the Wings song "Mull of Kintyre", co-written with Laine, was quickly becoming one of the best-selling singles in UK chart history.107 The most successful single of McCartney's solo career, it achieved double the sales of the previous record holder, "She Loves You", and went on to sell 2.5 million copies and hold the UK sales record until the 1984 charity single, "Do They Know It's Christmas?" London Town (1978) spawned a US number-one single ("With a Little Luck"), and continued Wings' string of commercial successes, making the top five in both the US and the UK. Critical reception was unfavourable, and McCartney expressed disappointment with the album.11018 Back to the Egg (1979) featured McCartney's assemblage of a rock supergroup dubbed "Rockestra" on two tracks. The band included Wings along with Pete Townshend, David Gilmour, Gary Brooker, John Paul Jones, John Bonham and others. Though certified platinum, critics panned the album.112 Wings completed their final concert tour in 1979, with twenty shows in the UK that included the live debut of the Beatles songs "Got to Get You into My Life", "The Fool on the Hill" and "Let it Be".113 In 1980, McCartney released his second solo LP, the self-produced McCartney II, which peaked at number one in the UK and number three in the US. As with his first album, he composed and performed it alone.114 The album contained the song "Coming Up", the live version of which, recorded in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1979 by Wings, became the group's last number-one hit.115 By 1981, McCartney felt he had accomplished all he could creatively with Wings and decided he needed a change. The group disbanded in April 1981 after Laine quit following disagreements over royalties and salaries. 1982-1990 In 1982, McCartney collaborated with Stevie Wonder on the Martin-produced number-one hit "Ebony and Ivory", included on McCartney's Tug of War LP, and with Michael Jackson on "The Girl Is Mine" from Thriller.12021 "Ebony and Ivory" was McCartney's record 28th single to hit number one on the Billboard 100.122 The following year, he and Jackson worked on "Say Say Say", McCartney's most recent US number one as of 2014. McCartney earned his latest UK number one as of 2014 with the title track of his LP release that year, "Pipes of Peace".12322 In 1984, McCartney starred in the musical Give My Regards to Broad Street, a feature film he also wrote and produced which included Starr in an acting role. It was disparaged by critics: Variety described the film as "characterless, bloodless, and pointless";125 while Roger Ebert awarded it a single star, writing, "you can safely skip the movie and proceed directly to the soundtrack".126 The album fared much better, reaching number one in the UK and producing the US top-ten hit single "No More Lonely Nights", featuring David Gilmour on lead guitar.127 In 1985, Warner Brothers commissioned McCartney to write a song for the comedic feature film Spies Like Us. He composed and recorded the track in four days, with Phil Ramone co-producing.12823 McCartney participated in Live Aid, performing "Let it Be", but technical difficulties rendered his vocals and piano barely audible for the first two verses, punctuated by squeals of feedback. Equipment technicians resolved the problems and David Bowie, Alison Moyet, Pete Townshend and Bob Geldof joined McCartney on stage, receiving an enthusiastic crowd reaction.130 McCartney collaborated with Eric Stewart on Press to Play (1986), with Stewart co-writing more than half the songs on the LP.13124 In 1988, McCartney released Снова в СССР, initially available only in the Soviet Union, which contained eighteen covers; recorded over the course of two days.133 In 1989, he joined forces with fellow Merseysiders Gerry Marsden and Holly Johnson to record an updated version of "Ferry Cross the Mersey", for the Hillsborough disaster appeal fund.13425 That same year, he released Flowers in the Dirt; a collaborative effort with Elvis Costello that included musical contributions from Gilmour and Nicky Hopkins.13626 McCartney then formed a band consisting of himself and Linda, with Hamish Stuart and Robbie McIntosh on guitars, Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and Chris Whitten on drums.138 In September 1989, they launched the Paul McCartney World Tour, his first in over a decade. During the tour, McCartney performed for the largest paying stadium audience in history on 21 April 1990, when 184,000 people attended his concert at Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.139 That year, he released the triple album Tripping the Live Fantastic, which contained selected performances from the tour. 1991-1999 McCartney ventured into orchestral music in 1991 when the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society commissioned a musical piece by him to celebrate its sesquicentennial. He collaborated with composer Carl Davis, producing Liverpool Oratorio. The performance featured opera singers Kiri Te Kanawa, Sally Burgess, Jerry Hadley and Willard White with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and the choir of Liverpool Cathedral.143 Reviews were negative. The Guardian was especially critical, describing the music as "afraid of anything approaching a fast tempo", and adding that the piece has "little awareness of the need for recurrent ideas that will bind the work into a whole".144 The paper published a letter McCartney submitted in response in which he noted several of the work's faster tempos and added, "happily, history shows that many good pieces of music were not liked by the critics of the time so I am content to ... let people judge for themselves the merits of the work."144 The New York Times was slightly more generous, stating, "There are moments of beauty and pleasure in this dramatic miscellany ... the music's innocent sincerity makes it difficult to be put off by its ambitions".145 Performed around the world after its London premiere, the Liverpool Oratorio reached number one on the UK classical chart, Music Week.146 In 1991, McCartney performed a selection of acoustic-only songs on MTV Unplugged and released a live album of the performance titled Unplugged (The Official Bootleg).14729 During the 1990s, McCartney collaborated twice with Youth of Killing Joke as the musical duo "the Fireman". The two released their first electronica album together, Strawberries Oceans Ships Forest, in 1993.149 McCartney released the rock album Off the Ground in 1993.15030 The subsequent New World Tour followed, which led to the release of the Paul Is Live album later that year.1523132 Starting in 1994, McCartney took a four-year break from his solo career to work on Apple's Beatles Anthology project with Harrison, Starr and Martin. He recorded a radio series called Oobu Joobu in 1995 for the American network Westwood One, which he described as "widescreen radio".156 Also in 1995, Prince Charles presented him with an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Music—"kind of amazing for somebody who doesn't read a note of music", commented McCartney.157 In 1997, McCartney released the rock album Flaming Pie. Starr appeared on drums and backing vocals in "Beautiful Night".15833 Later that year, he released the classical work Standing Stone, which topped the UK and US classical charts.160 In 1998, he released Rushes, the second electronica album by the Fireman.161 In 1999, McCartney released Run Devil Run.16234 Recorded in one week, and featuring Ian Paice and David Gilmour, it was primarily an album of covers with three McCartney originals. He had been planning such an album for years, having been previously encouraged to do so by Linda, who had died of cancer in April 1998.163 McCartney did an unannounced performance at the benefit tribute, "Concert for Linda," his wife of 29 years who died a year earlier. It was held at the Royal Albert Hall in London on 10 April 1999, and was organised by two of her close friends, Chrissie Hynde and Carla Lane. Also during 1999, he continued his experimentation with orchestral music on Working Classical. 2000-2009 In 2000, he released the electronica album Liverpool Sound Collage with Super Furry Animals and Youth, using the sound collage and musique concrète techniques that had fascinated him in the mid-1960s.165 He contributed the song "Nova" to a tribute album of classical, choral music called A Garland for Linda (2000), dedicated to his late wife.166 Having witnessed the 11 September 2001 attacks from the JFK airport tarmac, McCartney was inspired to take a leading role in organising the Concert for New York City. His studio album release in November that year, Driving Rain, included the song "Freedom", written in response to the attacks.16735 The following year, McCartney went out on tour with a band that included guitarists Rusty Anderson and Brian Ray, accompanied by Paul "Wix" Wickens on keyboards and Abe Laboriel, Jr. on drums.169 They began the Driving World Tour in April 2002, which included stops in the US, Mexico and Japan. The tour resulted in the double live album Back in the US, released internationally in 2003 as Back in the World.1703637 The tour earned a reported $126.2 million, an average of over $2 million per night, and Billboard named it the top tour of the year.172 The group continues to play together; McCartney has played live with Brian Ray, Rusty Anderson, Abe Laboriel Jr. and Wix Wickens longer than he played live with the Beatles.173 In July 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills. In November, on the first anniversary of George Harrison's death, McCartney performed at the Concert for George.174 He participated in the National Football League's Super Bowl, performing "Freedom" during the pre-game show for Super Bowl XXXVI in 2002 and headlining the halftime show at Super Bowl XXXIX in 2005.175 The English College of Arms honoured McCartney in 2002 by granting him a coat of arms. His crest, featuring a Liver bird holding an acoustic guitar in its claw, reflects his background in Liverpool and his musical career. The shield includes four curved emblems which resemble beetles' backs. The arms' motto is Ecce Cor Meum, Latin for "Behold My Heart".176 In 2003, the McCartneys had a child, Beatrice Milly. In July 2005, he performed at the Live 8 event in Hyde Park, London, opening the show with "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" (with U2) and closing it with "Drive My Car" (with George Michael), "Helter Skelter", and "The Long and Winding Road".17838 In September, he released the rock album Chaos and Creation in the Backyard, for which he provided most of the instrumentation.1803940 In 2006, McCartney released the classical work Ecce Cor Meum.18341 The rock album Memory Almost Full followed in 2007.18442 In 2008, he released his third Fireman album, Electric Arguments.18643 Also in 2008, he performed at a concert in Liverpool to celebrate the city's year as European Capital of Culture. In 2009, after a four-year break, he returned to touring and has since performed over 80 shows.188 More than forty-five years after the Beatles first appeared on American television during The Ed Sullivan Show, he returned to the same New York theatre to perform on Late Show with David Letterman.189 On 9 September 2009, EMI reissued the Beatles catalogue following a four-year digital remastering effort, releasing a music video game called The Beatles: Rock Band the same day.190 McCartney's enduring fame has made him a popular choice to open new venues. In 2009, he played to three sold-out concerts at the newly built Citi Field, a venue constructed to replace Shea Stadium in Queens, New York. These performances yielded the double live album Good Evening New York City later that year. 2010-Present In 2010, McCartney opened the Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; it was his first concert in Pittsburgh since 1990 due to the old Civic Arena being deemed unsuitable for McCartney's logistical needs.19244 In July 2011, McCartney performed at two sold-out concerts at the new Yankee Stadium. A New York Times review of the first concert reported that McCartney was "not saying goodbye but touring stadiums and playing marathon concerts."194 McCartney was commissioned by the New York City Ballet, and in September 2011, he released his first score for dance, a collaboration with Peter Martins called Ocean's Kingdom.195 Also in 2011, McCartney married Nancy Shevell.196 He released Kisses on the Bottom, a collection of standards, in February 2012, the same month that the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences honoured him as the MusiCares Person of the Year, two days prior to his performance at the 54th Annual Grammy Awards.197 McCartney remains one of the world's top draws. He played to over 100,000 people during two performances in Mexico City in May, with the shows grossing nearly $6 million.19845 In June 2012, McCartney closed Queen Elizabeth's Diamond Jubilee Concert held outside Buckingham Palace, performing a set that included "Let It Be" and "Live and Let Die".200 He closed the opening ceremony of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London on 27 July, singing "The End" and "Hey Jude" and inviting the audience to join in on the coda.201 Having donated his time, he received £1 from the Olympic organisers.202 On 12 December 2012, McCartney performed with three former members of Nirvana (Krist Novoselic, Dave Grohl, and Pat Smear) during the closing act of 12-12-12: The Concert for Sandy Relief, seen by approximately two billion people worldwide.203 On 28 August 2013, McCartney released the title track of his upcoming studio album New, which came out in October 2013.204 A primetime entertainment special was taped 27 January 2014 at the Ed Sullivan Theater with a 9 February 2014 CBS airing. The show featured Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr, and celebrated the legacy of the seven-time Grammy-winning group the Beatles and their groundbreaking 1964 first performance on The Ed Sullivan Show. The show, titled The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to The Beatles, featured 22 classic Beatles songs as performed by various artists, which included original Beatles McCartney and Starr.205 On 19 May 2014, the news reported that McCartney had been bedridden on doctor's orders due to an unspecified virus, which forced him to cancel a sold-out concert tour of Japan that was scheduled to begin later in the week. The tour would have included a stop at the famed Budokan Hall. McCartney also had to push his June US dates to October, as part of his doctor's order to take it easy to make a full recovery.206 However, he resumed the tour with a high-energy three hour appearance in Albany, New York, on 5 July 2014.207 On 14 August 2014, McCartney performed the final concert at Candlestick Park in San Francisco, California before its demolition. It was the same venue that the Beatles played their final concert in 1966.208 In 2014, McCartney wrote and performed "Hope for the Future," the ending song for the video game Destiny.209210 In November 2014, a 42-song tribute album titled The Art of McCartney was released, which features a wide range of artists covering McCartney's solo and Beatles work.211 Also that year, McCartney collaborated with American recording artist Kanye West on the single "Only One", released on 31 December.212 In January 2015, McCartney collaborated with West and Barbadian singer Rihanna on the single "FourFiveSeconds".213 They released a music video for the song in January214 and performed it live at the 57th Annual Grammy Awards on 8 February 2015.215 McCartney is a featured guest on West's 2015 single "All Day", which also features Theophilus London and Allan Kingdom. In February 2015, McCartney appeared and performed with Paul Simon for the Saturday Night Live 40th Anniversary Special. McCartney and Simon performed the first verse of "I've Just Seen a Face" on acoustic guitars, and McCartney later performed "Maybe I'm Amazed".217 McCartney shared lead vocals on the Alice Cooper-led Hollywood Vampires supergroup's cover of his song "Come and Get It" which appears on their debut album, released 11 September 2015.218 On 10 June 2016, McCartney released the career-spanning collection Pure McCartney.219 The set includes songs from throughout McCartney's solo career and his work with Wings and the Fireman, and is available in three different formats (2-CD, 4-CD, 4-LP and Digital). The 4-CD version includes 67 tracks, the majority of which were top 40 hits.220221 McCartney appeared in the adventure film Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales, which was released in 2017.222 In January 2017, McCartney filed a suit in United States district court against Sony/ATV Music Publishing seeking to reclaim ownership of his share of the Lennon–McCartney song catalogue beginning in 2018. Under US copyright law, for works published before 1978 the author can reclaim copyrights assigned to a publisher after 56 years.223224 McCartney and Sony agreed to a confidential settlement in June 2017.225226 On 20 June 2018, McCartney released two songs, "I Don't Know" and "Come On to Me", from his album Egypt Station, which was released on 7 September through Capitol Records.227 Egypt Station became McCartney's first album in 36 years to top the Billboard 200, and his first to debut at number one. Musicianship McCartney was largely a self-taught musician, and his approach was described by musicologist Ian MacDonald as "by nature drawn to music's formal aspects yet wholly untutored ... he produced technically 'finished' work almost entirely by instinct, his harmonic judgement based mainly on perfect pitch and an acute pair of ears ... A natural melodist—a creator of tunes capable of existing apart from their harmony".229 McCartney commented, "I prefer to think of my approach to music as ... rather like the primitive cave artists, who drew without training." Early Influences McCartney's earliest musical influences include Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Carl Perkins, and Chuck Berry.232 When asked why the Beatles did not include Presley on the Sgt. Pepper cover, McCartney replied, "Elvis was too important and too far above the rest even to mention ... so we didn't put him on the list because he was more than merely a ... pop singer, he was Elvis the King."233 McCartney stated that for his bassline for "I Saw Her Standing There", he directly quoted Berry's "I'm Talking About You".234 McCartney called Little Richard an idol, whose falsetto vocalisations inspired McCartney's own vocal technique.235 McCartney said he wrote "I'm Down" as a vehicle for his Little Richard impersonation.236 In 1971, McCartney bought the publishing rights to Holly's catalogue, and in 1976, on the fortieth anniversary of Holly's birth, McCartney inaugurated the annual "Buddy Holly Week" in England. The festival has included guest performances by famous musicians, songwriting competitions, drawing contests and special events featuring performances by the Crickets. Bass Guitar Best known for primarily using a plectrum or pick, McCartney occasionally plays fingerstyle.238 He does not use slapping techniques.239 He was strongly influenced by Motown artists, in particular James Jamerson, whom McCartney called a hero for his melodic style. He was also influenced by Brian Wilson, as he commented: "because he went to very unusual places".240 Another favourite bassist of his is Stanley Clarke.241 McCartney's skill as a bass player has been acknowledged by bassists including Sting, Dr. Dre bassist Mike Elizondo, and Colin Moulding of XTC.242 Paul is one of the most innovative bass players ... half the stuff that's going on now is directly ripped off from his Beatles period ... He's an egomaniac about everything else, but his bass playing he'd always been a bit coy about.243 — Lennon, Playboy magazine, January 1981 During McCartney's early years with the Beatles, he primarily used a Höfner 500/1 bass, although from 1965, he favoured his Rickenbacker 4001S for recording. While typically using Vox amplifiers, by 1967 he had also begun using a Fender Bassman for amplification.244 During the late 1980s and early 1990s, he used a Wal 5-String, which he said made him play more thick-sounding basslines, in contrast to the much lighter Höfner, which inspired him to play more sensitively, something he considers fundamental to his playing style.239 He changed back to the Höfner around 1990 for that reason.239 He uses Mesa Boogie bass amplifiers while performing live.245 MacDonald identified "She's a Woman" as the turning point when McCartney's bass playing began to evolve dramatically, and Beatles biographer Chris Ingham singled out Rubber Soul as the moment when McCartney's playing exhibited significant progress, particularly on "The Word".246 Bacon and Morgan agreed, calling McCartney's groove on the track "a high point in pop bass playing and ... the first proof on a recording of his serious technical ability on the instrument."247 MacDonald inferred the influence of James Brown's "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag" and Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour", American soul tracks from which McCartney absorbed elements and drew inspiration as he "delivered his most spontaneous bass-part to date".248 Bacon and Morgan described his bassline for the Beatles song "Rain" as "an astonishing piece of playing ... McCartney thinking in terms of both rhythm and 'lead bass' ... choosing the area of the neck ... he correctly perceives will give him clarity for melody without rendering his sound too thin for groove."249 MacDonald identified the influence of Indian classical music in "exotic melismas in the bass part" on "Rain" and described the playing as "so inventive that it threatens to overwhelm the track".250 By contrast, he recognised McCartney's bass part on the Harrison-composed "Something" as creative but overly busy and "too fussily extemporised".251 McCartney identified Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band as containing his strongest and most inventive bass playing, particularly on "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds". Acoustic Guitar McCartney primarily flatpicks while playing acoustic guitar, though he also uses elements of fingerpicking.253 Examples of his acoustic guitar playing on Beatles tracks include "Yesterday", "I'm Looking Through You", "Michelle", "Blackbird", "I Will", "Mother Nature's Son" and "Rocky Raccoon".254 McCartney singled out "Blackbird" as a personal favourite and described his technique for the guitar part in the following way: "I got my own little sort of cheating way of fingerpicking ... I'm actually sort of pulling two strings at a time ... I was trying to emulate those folk players."253 He employed a similar technique for "Jenny Wren".255 He played an Epiphone Texan on many of his acoustic recordings, but also used a Martin D-28. Electric Guitar McCartney played lead guitar on several Beatles recordings, including what MacDonald described as a "fiercely angular slide guitar solo" on "Drive My Car", which McCartney played on an Epiphone Casino. McCartney said of the instrument: "if I had to pick one electric guitar it would be this."258 He contributed what MacDonald described as "a startling guitar solo" on the Harrison composition "Taxman" and the "shrieking" guitar on "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" and "Helter Skelter". MacDonald also praised McCartney's "coruscating pseudo-Indian" guitar solo on "Good Morning Good Morning".259 McCartney also played lead guitar on "Another Girl".260 During his years with Wings, McCartney tended to leave electric guitar work to other group members,261 though he played most of the lead guitar on Band on the Run.262 In 1990, when asked who his favourite guitar players were he included Eddie Van Halen, Eric Clapton and David Gilmour, stating, "but I still like Hendrix the best".253 He has primarily used a Gibson Les Paul for electric work, particularly during live performances. Vocals McCartney is known for his belting power, versatility and wide tenor vocal range, spanning over four octaves.263264 He was ranked the 11th greatest singer of all time by Rolling Stone,265 voted the 8th greatest singer ever by NME readers266 and number 10 by Music Radar readers in the list of "the 30 greatest lead singers of all time".267 Over the years, McCartney has been named a significant vocal influence by Chris Cornell,268 Billy Joel,269 Steven Tyler,270 Brad Delp,271 and Axl Rose.272 McCartney's vocals has crossed several musical genres throughout his career. On "Call Me Back Again", according to Benitez, "McCartney shines as a bluesy solo vocalist" while MacDonald called "I'm Down" "a rock-and-roll classic" that "illustrates McCartney's vocal and stylistic versatility".273 MacDonald described "Helter Skelter" as an early attempt at heavy metal, and "Hey Jude" as a "pop/rock hybrid", pointing out McCartney's "use of gospel-style melismas" in the song and his "pseudo-soul shrieking in the fade-out".274 Benitez identified "Hope of Deliverance" and "Put It There" as examples of McCartney's folk music efforts while musicologist Walter Everett considered "When I'm Sixty-Four" and "Honey Pie" attempts at vaudeville.275 MacDonald praised the "swinging beat" of the Beatles' twenty-four bar blues song, "She's a Woman" as "the most extreme sound they had manufactured to date", with McCartney's voice "at the edge, squeezed to the upper limit of his chest register and threatening to crack at any moment."276 MacDonald described "I've Got a Feeling" as a "raunchy, mid-tempo rocker" with a "robust and soulful" vocal performance and "Back in the U.S.S.R." as "the last of Beatles' up-tempo rockers", McCartney's "belting" vocals among his best since "Drive My Car", recorded three years earlier.277 McCartney also teasingly tried out classical singing, namely singing various renditions of "Besame Mucho" with the Beatles. He continued experimenting with various musical and vocal styles throughout his post-Beatles career.278279280integrity? "Monkberry Moon Delight" was described by Pitchfork's Jayson Greene as "an absolutely unhinged vocal take, Paul gulping and sobbing right next to your inner ear", adding that "it could be a latter-day Tom Waits performance". Keyboards McCartney played piano on several Beatles songs, including "She's a Woman", "For No One", "A Day in the Life", "Hello, Goodbye", "Lady Madonna", "Hey Jude", "Martha My Dear", "Let It Be" and "The Long and Winding Road".282 MacDonald considered the piano part in "Lady Madonna" as reminiscent of Fats Domino, and "Let It Be" as having a gospel rhythm.283 MacDonald called McCartney's Mellotron intro on "Strawberry Fields Forever" an integral feature of the song's character.284 McCartney played a Moog synthesizer on the Beatles song "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" and the Wings track "Loup (1st Indian on the Moon)".285 Ingham described the Wings songs "With a Little Luck" and "London Town" as being "full of the most sensitive pop synthesizer touches". Drums McCartney played drums on the Beatles' songs "Back in the U.S.S.R.", "Dear Prudence", "Martha My Dear", "Wild Honey Pie" and "The Ballad of John and Yoko".287 He also played all the drum parts on his first and second solo albums McCartney and McCartney II, as well as on the Wings album Band on the Run and most of the drums on his solo LP Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.288 His other drumming contributions include Paul Jones' rendition of "And the Sun Will Shine" (1968),289 Steve Miller Band's 1969 tracks "Celebration Song" and "My Dark Hour",290291 and "Sunday Rain" from the Foo Fighters' 2017 album Concrete and Gold. Tape Loops In the mid-1960s, when visiting artist friend John Dunbar's flat in London, McCartney brought tapes he had compiled at then-girlfriend Jane Asher's home. They included mixes of various songs, musical pieces and comments made by McCartney that Dick James made into a demo for him.293 Heavily influenced by American avant-garde musician John Cage, McCartney made tape loops by recording voices, guitars and bongos on a Brenell tape recorder and splicing the various loops. He referred to the finished product as "electronic symphonies".294 He reversed the tapes, sped them up, and slowed them down to create the desired effects, some of which the Beatles later used on the songs "Tomorrow Never Knows" and "The Fool on the Hill". Lifestyle Creative Outlets While at school during the 1950s, McCartney thrived at art assignments, often earning top accolades for his visual work. However, his lack of discipline negatively affected his academic grades, preventing him from earning admission to art college.296 During the 1960s, he delved into the visual arts, explored experimental cinema, and regularly attended film, theatrical and classical music performances. His first contact with the London avant-garde scene was through artist John Dunbar, who introduced McCartney to art dealer Robert Fraser.297 At Fraser's flat he first learned about art appreciation and met Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, Peter Blake, and Richard Hamilton.298 McCartney later purchased works by Magritte, whose painting of an apple had inspired the Apple Records logo.299 McCartney became involved in the renovation and publicising of the Indica Gallery in Mason's Yard, London, which Barry Miles had co-founded and where Lennon first met Yoko Ono. Miles also co-founded International Times, an underground paper that McCartney helped to start with direct financial support and by providing interviews to attract advertiser income. Miles later wrote McCartney's official biography, Many Years from Now (1997).300 McCartney became interested in painting after watching artist Willem de Kooning work in de Kooning's Long Island studio.301 McCartney took up painting in 1983, and he first exhibited his work in Siegen, Germany, in 1999. The 70-painting show featured portraits of Lennon, Andy Warhol and David Bowie.302 Though initially reluctant to display his paintings publicly, McCartney chose the gallery because events organiser Wolfgang Suttner showed genuine interest in McCartney's art.303 In September 2000, the first UK exhibition of McCartney's paintings opened, featuring 500 canvases at the Arnolfini Gallery in Bristol, England.304 In October 2000, McCartney's art debuted in his hometown of Liverpool. McCartney said, "I've been offered an exhibition of my paintings at the Walker Art Gallery ... where John and I used to spend many a pleasant afternoon. So I'm really excited about it. I didn't tell anybody I painted for 15 years but now I'm out of the closet".305 McCartney is lead patron of the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts, a school in the building formerly occupied by the Liverpool Institute for Boys.306 When McCartney was a child, his mother read him poems and encouraged him to read books. His father invited Paul and his brother Michael to solve crosswords with him, to increase their "word power", as McCartney said.307 In 2001, McCartney published Blackbird Singing, a volume of poems and lyrics to his songs for which he gave readings in Liverpool and New York City.308 In the foreword of the book, he explains: "When I was a teenager ... I had an overwhelming desire to have a poem published in the school magazine. I wrote something deep and meaningful—which was promptly rejected—and I suppose I have been trying to get my own back ever since".309 His first children's book was published by Faber & Faber in 2005, High in the Clouds: An Urban Furry Tail, a collaboration with writer Philip Ardagh and animator Geoff Dunbar. Featuring a squirrel whose woodland home is razed by developers, it had been scripted and sketched by McCartney and Dunbar over several years, as an animated film. The Observer labelled it an "anti-capitalist children's book".310 In 2018, he wrote the children's book Hey Grandude! together with illustrator Kathryn Durst, which was published by Random House Books in September 2019. The book is about a grandpa and his three grandchildren with a magic compass on an adventure.311 I think there's an urge in us to stop the terrible fleetingness of time. Music. Paintings ... Try and capture one bloody moment please.312 — McCartney In 1981, McCartney asked Geoff Dunbar to direct a short animated film called Rupert and the Frog Song; McCartney was the writer and producer, and he also added some of the character voices.313 His song "We All Stand Together" from the film's soundtrack reached No. 3 in the UK Singles Chart. In 1992, he worked with Dunbar on an animated film about the work of French artist Honoré Daumier, which won them a BAFTA award.314 In 2004, they worked together on the animated short film Tropic Island Hum.315 The accompanying single, "Tropic Island Hum"/"We All Stand Together", reached number 21 in the UK.316 McCartney also produced and hosted The Real Buddy Holly Story, a 1985 documentary featuring interviews with Keith Richards, Phil and Don Everly, the Holly family, and others.317 In 1995, he made a guest appearance on the Simpsons episode "Lisa the Vegetarian" and directed a short documentary about the Grateful Dead. Business Since the Rich List began in 1989, McCartney has been the UK's wealthiest musician, with an estimated fortune of £730 million in 2015.319 In addition to an interest in Apple Corps and MPL Communications, an umbrella company for his business interests, he owns a significant music publishing catalogue, with access to over 25,000 copyrights, including the publishing rights to the musicals Guys and Dolls, A Chorus Line, Annie and Grease.320 He earned £40 million in 2003, the highest income that year within media professions in the UK.321 This rose to £48.5 million by 2005.322 McCartney's 18-date On the Run Tour grossed £37 million in 2012.323 McCartney signed his first recording contract, as a member of the Beatles, with Parlophone Records, an EMI subsidiary, in June 1962. In the United States, the Beatles recordings were distributed by EMI subsidiary Capitol Records. The Beatles re-signed with EMI for another nine years in 1967. After forming their own record label, Apple Records, in 1968, the Beatles' recordings would be released through Apple although the masters were still owned by EMI.34 Following the break-up of the Beatles, McCartney's music continued to be released by Apple Records under the Beatles' 1967 recording contract with EMI which ran until 1976. Following the formal dissolution of the Beatles' partnership in 1975, McCartney re-signed with EMI worldwide and Capitol in the US, Canada and Japan, acquiring ownership of his solo catalogue from EMI as part of the deal. In 1979, McCartney signed with Columbia Records in the US and Canada—reportedly receiving the industry's most lucrative recording contract to date, while remaining with EMI for distribution throughout the rest of the world.324 As part of the deal, CBS offered McCartney ownership of Frank Music, publisher of the catalogue of American songwriter Frank Loesser. McCartney's album sales were below CBS' expectations and reportedly the company lost at least $9 million on the contract.325 McCartney returned to Capitol in the US in 1985, remaining with EMI until 2006.326 In 2007, McCartney signed with Hear Music, becoming the label's first artist. He remains there as of 2012's Kisses on the Bottom.327 In 1963, Dick James established Northern Songs to publish the songs of Lennon–McCartney.328 McCartney initially owned 20% of Northern Songs, which became 15% after a public stock offering in 1965. In 1969, James sold a controlling interest in Northern Songs to Lew Grade's Associated Television (ATV) after which McCartney and John Lennon sold their remaining shares although they remained under contract to ATV until 1973. In 1972, McCartney re-signed with ATV for seven years in a joint publishing agreement between ATV and McCartney Music. Since 1979, MPL Communications has published McCartney's songs. McCartney and Yoko Ono attempted to purchase the Northern Songs catalogue in 1981, but Grade declined their offer. Soon afterward, ATV Music's parent company, Associated Communications Corp., was acquired in a takeover by businessman Robert Holmes à Court, who later sold ATV Music to Michael Jackson in 1985. McCartney has criticised Jackson's purchase and handling of Northern Songs over the years. In 1995, Jackson merged his catalogue with Sony for a reported £59,052,000 ($95 million), establishing Sony/ATV Music Publishing, in which he retained half-ownership.329 Northern Songs was formally dissolved in 1995, and absorbed into the Sony/ATV catalogue.330 McCartney receives writers' royalties which together are 33⅓ percent of total commercial proceeds in the US, and which vary elsewhere between 50 and 55 percent.331 Two of the Beatles' earliest songs—"Love Me Do" and "P.S. I Love You"—were published by an EMI subsidiary, Ardmore & Beechwood, before signing with James. McCartney acquired their publishing rights from Ardmore in 1978, and they are the only two Beatles songs owned by MPL Communications. Drugs McCartney first used drugs in the Beatles' Hamburg days when they often used Preludin to maintain their energy while performing for long periods.333 Bob Dylan introduced them to marijuana in a New York hotel room in 1964; McCartney recalls getting "very high" and "giggling uncontrollably".334 His use of the drug soon became habitual, and according to Miles, McCartney wrote the lyrics "another kind of mind" in "Got to Get You into My Life" specifically as a reference to cannabis.335 During the filming of Help!, McCartney occasionally smoked a joint in the car on the way to the studio during filming, and often forgot his lines.336 Director Richard Lester overheard two physically attractive women trying to persuade McCartney to use heroin, but he refused.336 Introduced to cocaine by Robert Fraser, McCartney used the drug regularly during the recording of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, and for about a year total but stopped because of his dislike of the unpleasant melancholy he felt afterwards.337 Initially reluctant to try LSD, McCartney eventually did so in late 1966, and took his second "acid trip" in March 1967 with Lennon after a Sgt. Pepper studio session.338 He later became the first Beatle to discuss the drug publicly, declaring: "It opened my eyes ... and made me a better, more honest, more tolerant member of society."339 He made his attitude about cannabis public in 1967, when he, along with the other Beatles and Epstein, added his name to a July advertisement in The Times, which called for its legalisation, the release of those imprisoned for possession, and research into marijuana's medical uses.340 In 1972, a Swedish court fined McCartney £1,000 for cannabis possession. Soon after, Scottish police found marijuana plants growing on his farm, leading to his 1973 conviction for illegal cultivation and a £100 fine. As a result of his drug convictions, the US government repeatedly denied him a visa until December 1973.341 Arrested again for marijuana possession in 1975 in Los Angeles, Linda took the blame, and the court soon dismissed the charges. In January 1980, when Wings flew to Tokyo for a tour of Japan, customs officials found approximately 8 ounces (200 g) of cannabis in his luggage. They arrested McCartney and brought him to a local jail while the Japanese government decided what to do. After ten days, they released and deported him without charge.342 In 1984, while McCartney was on holiday in Barbados, authorities arrested him for possession of marijuana and fined him $200.343 Upon his return to England, he stated: "cannabis is ... less harmful than rum punch, whiskey, nicotine and glue, all of which are perfectly legal ... I don't think ... I was doing anyone any harm whatsoever."344 In 1997, he spoke out in support of decriminalisation of the drug: "People are smoking pot anyway and to make them criminals is wrong."297 He did, however, decide to quit cannabis in 2015, citing a desire to set a good example for his grandchildren. Vegetarianism and Activism Since 1975, McCartney has been a vegetarian.346347 He and his wife Linda were vegetarians for most of their 29-year marriage. They decided to stop consuming meat after Paul saw lambs in a field as they were eating a meal of lamb. Soon after, the couple became outspoken animal rights activists.348 In his first interview after Linda's death, he promised to continue working for animal rights, and in 1999, he spent £3,000,000 to ensure Linda McCartney Foods remained free of genetically engineered ingredients.349 In 1995, he narrated the documentary Devour the Earth, written by Tony Wardle.350 McCartney is a supporter of the animal-rights organisation People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.351 He has appeared in the group's campaigns, and in 2009, McCartney narrated a video for them titled "Glass Walls", which was harshly critical of slaughterhouses, the meat industry, and their effect on animal welfare.352353354355 McCartney has also supported campaigns headed by the Humane Society of the United States, Humane Society International, World Animal Protection, and the David Shepherd Wildlife Foundation.356357 Following McCartney's marriage to Mills, he joined her in a campaign against land mines, becoming a patron of Adopt-A-Minefield.358 In 2003 in a meeting at the Kremlin with Vladimir Putin, ahead of a concert in Red Square, McCartney and Mills urged Russia to join the anti-landmine campaign.359 In 2006, the McCartneys travelled to Prince Edward Island to raise international awareness of seal hunting. The couple debated with Danny Williams, Newfoundland's then Premier, on Larry King Live, stating that fishermen should stop hunting seals and start seal-watching businesses instead.360 McCartney also supports the Make Poverty History campaign.361 McCartney has participated in several charity recordings and performances, including the Concerts for the People of Kampuchea, Ferry Aid, Band Aid, Live Aid, Live 8, and the recording of "Ferry Cross the Mersey".362 In 2004, he donated a song to an album to aid the "US Campaign for Burma", in support of Burmese Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi. In 2008, he donated a song to Aid Still Required's CD, organised as an effort to raise funds to assist with the recovery from the devastation caused in Southeast Asia by the 2004 tsunami.363 In 2009, McCartney wrote to Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama, asking him why he was not a vegetarian. As McCartney explained, "He wrote back very kindly, saying, 'my doctors tell me that I must eat meat'. And I wrote back again, saying, you know, I don't think that's right ... I think he's now being told ... that he can get his protein somewhere else ... It just doesn't seem right—the Dalai Lama, on the one hand, saying, 'Hey guys, don't harm sentient beings ... Oh, and by the way, I'm having a steak.'"364 In 2012, McCartney joined the anti-fracking campaign Artists Against Fracking.365 Save the Arctic is a campaign to protect the Arctic and an international outcry and a renewed focus concern on oil development in the Arctic, attracting the support of more than five million people. This includes McCartney, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and 11 Nobel Peace Prize winners.366367 In 2015, following British prime minister David Cameron's decision to give Members of Parliament a free vote on amending the law against fox hunting, McCartney was quoted: "The people of Britain are behind this Tory government on many things but the vast majority of us will be against them if hunting is reintroduced. It is cruel and unnecessary and will lose them support from ordinary people and animal lovers like myself." Meditation In August 1967, McCartney met the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi at the London Hilton and later went to Bangor in North Wales to attend a weekend initiation conference, where he and the other Beatles learned the basics of Transcendental Meditation.369 He said, "The whole meditation experience was very good and I still use the mantra ... I find it soothing."370 In 2009, McCartney and Starr headlined a benefit concert at Radio City Music Hall, raising three million dollars for the David Lynch Foundation to fund instruction in Transcendental Meditation for at-risk youth. Football McCartney has publicly professed support for Everton and has also shown favour for Liverpool.372 In 2008, he ended speculation about his allegiance when he said: "Here's the deal: my father was born in Everton, my family are officially Evertonians, so if it comes down to a derby match or an FA Cup final between the two, I would have to support Everton. But after a concert at Wembley Arena I got a bit of a friendship with Kenny Dalglish, who had been to the gig and I thought 'You know what? I am just going to support them both because it's all Liverpool.'" Personal Relationships Girlfriends Dot Rhone McCartney's first serious girlfriend in Liverpool was Dot Rhone, whom he met at the Casbah club in 1959.374 According to Spitz, Rhone felt that McCartney had a compulsion to control situations. He often chose clothes and make-up for her, encouraging her to grow her hair out like Brigitte Bardot's, and at least once insisting she have it re-styled, to disappointing effect.375 When McCartney first went to Hamburg with the Beatles, he wrote to Rhone regularly, and she accompanied Cynthia Lennon to Hamburg when they played there again in 1962.376 The couple had a two-and-a-half-year relationship, and were due to marry until Rhone's miscarriage. According to Spitz, McCartney, now "free of obligation", ended the engagement. Jane Asher McCartney first met British actress Jane Asher on 18 April 1963 when a photographer asked them to pose at a Beatles performance at the Royal Albert Hall in London.378 The two began a relationship, and in November of that year he took up residence with Asher at her parents' home at 57 Wimpole Street, London.379 They had lived there for more than two years before the couple moved to McCartney's own home in St. John's Wood in March 1966.380 He wrote several songs while living at the Ashers', including "Yesterday", "And I Love Her", "You Won't See Me" and "I'm Looking Through You", the latter three having been inspired by their romance.381 They had a five-year relationship and planned to marry, but Asher broke off the engagement after she discovered he had become involved with Francie Schwartz,382 an American screenwriter who moved to London at age 23 thinking she could sell a script to the Beatles. She met McCartney and he invited her to move into his London house, where events ensued that possibly broke up him and Asher. Wives Linda Eastman Linda Eastman was a music fan who once commented, "all my teen years were spent with an ear to the radio."384 At times, she played hooky to see artists such as Fabian, Bobby Darin and Chuck Berry.384 She became a popular photographer with several rock groups, including the Jimi Hendrix Experience, the Grateful Dead, the Doors and the Beatles, whom she first met at Shea Stadium in 1966. She commented, "It was John who interested me at the start. He was my Beatle hero. But when I met him the fascination faded fast, and I found it was Paul I liked."385 The pair first properly met in 1967 at a Georgie Fame concert at The Bag O'Nails club, during her UK assignment to photograph rock musicians in London. As Paul remembers, "The night Linda and I met, I spotted her across a crowded club, and although I would normally have been nervous chatting her up, I realised I had to ... Pushiness worked for me that night!"386 Linda said this about their meeting: "I was quite shameless really. I was with somebody else night ... and I saw Paul at the other side of the room. He looked so beautiful that I made up my mind I would have to pick him up."385 The pair married in 1969. About their relationship, Paul said, "We had a lot of fun together ... just the nature of how we are, our favourite thing really is to just hang, to have fun. And Linda's very big on just following the moment."387 He added, "We were crazy. We had a big argument the night before we got married, and it was nearly called off ... it's miraculous that we made it. But we did."388 After the Beatles' break-up, the two collaborated musically and formed Wings in 1971.389 They faced derision from some fans and critics, who questioned her inclusion. She was nervous about performing with Paul, who explained, "she conquered those nerves, got on with it and was really gutsy."390 Paul defended her musical ability: "I taught Linda the basics of the keyboard ... She took a couple of lessons and learned some bluesy things ... she did very well and made it look easier than it was ... The critics would say, 'She's not really playing' or 'Look at her—she's playing with one finger.' But what they didn't know is that sometimes she was playing a thing called a Minimoog, which could only be played with one finger. It was monophonic."390 He went on to say, "We thought we were in it for the fun ... it was just something we wanted to do, so if we got it wrong—big deal. We didn't have to justify ourselves."390 Former Wings guitarist McCullough said of collaborating with Linda, "trying to get things together with a learner in the group didn't work as far as I was concerned."391 They had four children—Linda's daughter Heather (legally adopted by Paul), Mary, Stella and James—and remained married until Linda's death from breast cancer at age 56 in 1998.392 After Linda died, Paul stated in the Daily Mail, "I got a counsellor because I knew that I would need some help. He was great, particularly in helping me get rid of my guilt wishing I'd been perfect all the time ... a real bugger. But then I thought, hang on a minute. We're just human. That was the beautiful thing about our marriage. We were just a boyfriend and girlfriend having babies." Heather Mills In 2002, McCartney married Heather Mills, a former model and anti-landmines campaigner.394 In 2003, the couple had a child, Beatrice Milly, named in honour of Mills' late mother and one of McCartney's aunts.177 They separated in April 2006 and divorced acrimoniously in March 2008.395 In 2004, he commented on media animosity toward his partners: "British public didn't like me giving up on Jane Asher ... I married Linda, a New York divorcee with a child, and at the time they didn't like that". Nancy Shevell McCartney married New Yorker Nancy Shevell in a civil ceremony at Old Marylebone Town Hall, London, on 9 October 2011. The wedding was a modest event attended by a group of about 30 relatives and friends.196 The couple had been together since November 2007.397 Shevell is vice-president of a family-owned transportation conglomerate which owns New England Motor Freight.398 She is a former member of the board of the New York area's Metropolitan Transportation Authority.399 Shevell is about 18 years younger than McCartney.400 They had known each other for about 20 years prior to marrying, having met because both had homes in the Hamptons. The Beetles John Lennon Though McCartney had a strained relationship with Lennon, they briefly became close again in early 1974, and played music together on one occasion.401 In later years, the two grew apart.402 While McCartney would often phone Lennon, he was apprehensive about the reception he would receive. During one call, Lennon told him, "You're all pizza and fairytales!"403 In an effort to avoid talking only about business, they often spoke of cats, babies, or baking bread.404 On 24 April 1976, McCartney and Lennon were watching an episode of Saturday Night Live together at Lennon's home in the Dakota when Lorne Michaels made a $3,000 cash offer for the Beatles to reunite. While they seriously considered going to the SNL studio a few blocks away, they decided it was too late. This was their last time together.405 VH1 fictionalised this event in the 2000 television film Two of Us.406 McCartney's last telephone call to Lennon, days before Lennon and Ono released Double Fantasy, was friendly; he said this about the call: "is a consoling factor for me, because I do feel it was sad that we never actually sat down and straightened our differences out. But fortunately for me, the last phone conversation I ever had with him was really great, and we didn't have any kind of blow-up." Reacting to Lenon's Death George Harrison Ringo Starr 'This page was created by DomiTheGamer on January 14, 2020. ' Category:Male YouTubers Category:English YouTubers Category:YouTube Musicians Category:Users that joined in 2006 Category:YouTube Vloggers